New study shows eating poorly cooked rice is as dangerous as smoking

It’s the humble staple that has served as the sponge to your wasabi and soy, the trusty old Chinese takeaway friend, and your 60 second microwaveable lunch. Simply put, the world wouldn’t revolve if rice was non-existent. It’s cheap, incredibly satisfying, and extremely quick and easy to cook - well so we thought.

News just in: fertility researchers have found that rice that is not properly cooked contains harmful arsenic metals which interfere with reproductive systems and can cause cancer.

Experts gathered for a Merck Foundation meeting in Egypt and discussed how rice picks up arsenic metals that are naturally found in the soil and groundwater often used to irrigate the grain in the dry season.

Africa Fertility Society President, Professor Oladopo Ashiru, explained that large amounts of metal in the soil are easily absorbed by humans when they eat the grain.

While the fibroids he refers to are generally non-cancerous tumours, they appear in the tissues around the uterus and muscle layers of the womb, which can interfere with fertility production. These tumours can vary from the size of a bean to being as big as a melon.

According to Women’s Health Queensland, 40 per cent of Australian women over 40 have one or more fibroids, and this is increased to 70 per cent by the age of 50. Unfortunately, these figures are likely increased if you eat rice that isn’t prepared properly.

But before you decide to ditch the grain from your diet, you can still enjoy rice if you put a little extra TLC into preparing it.

It’s all in the prep

Just because you cook your pasta al dente straight from the pack, it sadly doesn’t work the same for rice.

To reduce any traces of arsenic metals, you should soak the rice overnight before cooking it in a 5:1 water-to-rice ratio. While it does sound a bit extreme and time-consuming AF, it’ll cut the level of harmful materials by over 80 per cent, the researchers found.

Professor Andy Meharg of Queen’s University Belfast, advises the normal ratio of one cup of rice to two cups of water is dangerous because the water will simply soak in.

“I know the soaking method is boring but for your health, it is necessary since the one to two ratio is very dangerous,” he said.

Short on time? Prof Ashiru suggests that boiling and pouring out the water and boiling it again reduces the arsenic content significantly. And just like smoking a pack of ciggies a day will increase your chances of cancer compared to if you stuck to one cigarette a day, Prof Meharg says the same goes for rice.

“It’s dose-dependent - the more you eat, the higher your risk is.”

Sorry sushi-lovers.

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